


Jewels for her Eyes

by drladybird



Category: Mass Effect (Comics), Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alien Culture, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Anger, Colonialism, Coping, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Interspecies Awkwardness, Interspecies Romance, Religion, Tea, Tragic Romance, hey what happened to Luna Shanks?, let's mock Mass Effect fashion, nasty Ryder/Reyes breakup in background, real-life racial politics, very mixed feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 03:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18652075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drladybird/pseuds/drladybird
Summary: Tiran Kandros mourns the death of his ex-lover Sloane Kelly.





	1. Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [omegastation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/omegastation/gifts).



> -This isn't particularly canon-divergent. Scott and friends are lying for the sake of political stability.  
> -I'm writing about real-world racial politics that I've never been part of, so if I've said anything daft, please correct me ASAP!

I’m checking Taerve Uni’s combat reports when a salarian runs in, clutches my desk and shrieks “ _Chief Kandros! You’re not going to believe this!”_

“What’s going on?” Good news, from her expression? Ajjia, that’s her name. Thawed last month.

She leans forward and puts her hand through my holographic paperwork. “Chief, we’re allied with Kadara! They’re establishing diplomatic relations now! They’ll need you for the negotiations! They’re letting us build a colony!”

That… that can’t be real.

I knew Sloane Kelly would see sense. I knew she’d realise we need to work together. I knew she’d realise she’d gone too far, trying to crack down on dissent, and it’ll be a shaky road back from the mess she’s made of things, but we’ve got the power to help and support her now…

“Kelly’s established relations?” Where do we take this? Can we encourage her to delegate management to Kaetus? Focus her on warfare again?

“No! The natives are in charge now! Some dalatrass type called Keema, mother of the Dohrguns, she’s making trade deals now!”

No. “ _What happened to Kelly?_ ”

Ajjia jerks away. I didn’t mean to shout. “Oh! She’s dead, of course!”

No. This isn’t happening.

“ _How?_ ”

She pulls further back. I never meant to scare her, but I want her out of my personal space, now. “We don’t have the full story yet,” she babbles, “but it sounds like Mother Keema killed Kelly in a duel, and of course the Kadara Port clans and their Collective friends had taken over most of the infrastructure, handing out free food and decent medical care, so when the Collective announced they were in charge now, no one put up much of a fight…”

Keema Dohrgun? The “advisor” who only spoke to praise Kelly’s government? She even started dressing like a human, sewed herself frilly white blouses and short stiff black kilts and stopped painting her face.

“Sloane Kelly. She _died?_ ” She was declared dead for months before Ryder found her on Kadara. I was sure she was alive then.

“Oh yes, definitely!” Ajjia grins like she’s been offered something wonderful. “That much is clear! They carried her body through the middle of town, cameras everywhere, and I just hope they’re not going to put her head on a stake now, but well, if they did, it’d be a little deserved, wouldn’t it?”


	2. Then

The plumbing’s finally working down Nexus Corridor LC-X. My feet hurt and I’ve snapped a claw-tip trying to use it as a screwdriver and my eyes have been burning for days, but the taps run clean water.

“Now,” Sloane says, “let there be light!”

She flicks a switch and all the lights come on. Ow. Fuck. Been working by headlamp so long, my eyes forgot what bright light was.

Grey bland corridor, grey impersonal living spaces, everything vaguely grimy, but it’s lit up and it’s liveable. Team Delta can sleep in beds tonight. They’ve spent the last few weeks sleeping in piles on the floor, and yesterday T’Mari punched Wong for snoring.

Sloane squeezes my arm. “One… down.”

“One down. Rest of Heleus to go.” I’m no plumbing expert, but I’m awake and using up food and oxygen, and this enemy’s not one I can fight.

She snorts. “You been sleeping?”

“Sometimes.” When I get the chance, and usually standing up.

“You want to get a few hours’ sleep, while I get started on the next corridor?”

“Long as you’re OK with that.” She’s not getting enough rest either, and the work isn’t shrinking.

For asari beds, they look awfully inviting. Just need a couple of extra pillows…

Sloane shoves me towards the nearest bed. “Think I’ll live. If I need a hand, I’ll come and get you.”

................................................................................ 

We’ve been drilling the future security team all day, and we’ve finally escaped to Sloane’s London office.

Interesting day. Had a guy from Mannovai call a guy from Jaeto _cucu,_ then claim he didn’t know that was offensive. He didn’t know how to shoot straight either. Good thing we won’t have much need for soldiers in Andromeda, because this lot?

“You reckon they’ll scare the enemy?” Sloane says. “Because they scare me, all right!”

“That Livia Sajax seems competent.” She was dishonourably discharged from the Hierarchy Navy after a suspicious friendly-fire incident, and seems to have been a pirate at some point, but she’s as good a shot as she thinks she is and she even understands admin.

Sloane nods. “Let’s just keep her with comrades she won’t _want_ to throw grenades at…” She leans back into the lovely squashy couch. “I’m making myself a large coffee. You ever tried coffee?”

My omni-tool app tells me that Earth coffee won’t have any psychoactive effect on me, but won’t be toxic. “Never thought to. I assume it’s good?” It’s made of berries, right? Hard to go wrong with berries.

“Heavenly,” she says. “Bitter, though, I’d better warn you. Asari seem to like it, but they usually put so much cream and sugar in it that you can’t taste the coffee. Try some?”

She puts some nuts through a spice grinder, adds boiling water, runs it through a filter, and hands me a human mug which, hmm, how do I get this into my mouth without spilling it…

This stuff’s vile and I need it out of my mouth _now!_

“Shit!” Sloane yelps, jumping up. “You all right? Too hot?”

And I’ve just managed to pour half the coffee into my cowl, drop the mug on the white carpet, and make all the faces you’re not supposed to make in front of humans in case they run screaming. Very dignified.

 “I think it’s gone mouldy.” Possibly the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. “Where are the towels?”

“Mouldy?” She strides across the room, yanks a towel out of the cupboard and starts mopping the carpet. “Sorry. It’s supposed to taste like that.”

Why. Why would you drink that. Why.

I clean myself up, wash out my mouth, wash out my mouth again, and eat some sugar cubes in a vain attempt to get rid of the taste.

Sloane prods the brown soggy patch on the carpet, shakes her head, and starts fishing cleaning supplies out of the cupboards. “Sorry about that. Hmm. You think we can keep Sajax under control by threatening her with coffee?”

“Yes!”

................................................................

I haven’t had to buy clothes for fifteen years. Well, I’ve bought sexy lingerie. The army only provides comfortable, hideous undershorts. That’s not relevant.

What are all these buckles? Why is everything six clashing shades of neon? At least the hats are cute. Now can you find me one without a padded tip, please, I don’t appreciate the implication that I need the help?

“No, seriously,” Sloane insists. “Garson says we need some clothes that aren’t Initiative uniforms. She says having everyone run round Earth in uniform makes us look like a cult.”

“Hmm. Are you quite certain we’re not?”

She snorts. “What? Suppose you’ve always got to be careful, making alternative lifestyle choices. Still, I’d definitely be with the Initiative if Garson wasn’t running it.”

“Or if Garson didn’t have such a pleasing rear end?”

She elbows me, hard enough to hurt. “Come on, Kandros, you know that’s about thousandth on the list of reasons I… follow her.” Her mouth quirks in a way that I’m still learning to interpret.

One advantage of working with humans: I look less short in comparison. Sloane, in particular, isn’t much taller than my shoulder.

“A couple of my aunts think I’ve joined a dangerous cult,” I point out, “but it’s mostly the same aunts who think humans are “unpredictably aggressive”, so…”

She snorts. “Only took me a few months to realise we weren’t being invaded by space monsters, and I was with Drescher’s infantry.”

“So you take my point.”

I’ve spent half my life wanting to put duct tape over Aunt Lexi’s mouth, but, fuck, I think I’m even going to miss her.

It’s not too late to change my mind. I threw away my chance to be the next Ravis Kandros, but I could be, hell, I could be an artist, it worked for my sister? Run away to the Citadel and live in the shoebox next to Caia, apologise a few more times for everything I said to her when we were twenty, give her a hand with both the actual art and the flattering paintings of asari matriarchs? I think she sometimes has to do other things to the matriarchs to make ends meet, but I think I could do that for enough money, and freedom the rest of the time?

What would that life even look like?

“What happened to trousers?” Sloane says. “Humans trying to rip off asari fashion, well, why not, we’ve ripped off worse, but asari know what trousers are, so why do the fashion people want me to wear some flowing gown and pretend I’m Guinevere? You think we should go through that rack, grab everything my size that’s too short to trip over and has pockets and no great big holes in it, and see which ones look least stupid?”

There’s more to the universe than Citadel space, though, and a lot more opportunities to be useful. Nobody remembers one more artist.

I squint at the long robe things. “That dark orange colour. I think it’d suit you?”

 

I think the orange robe looks decent? I’m not an expert on human fashion. Sloane has a lot of… squidginess… round her hips and belly, and apparently she’d rather be all smooth and non-lumpy like an asari? The orange thing skims over the lumps, anyway, rather than sticking to them.

Sloane glares at her reflection. “Not very me, but it’s nice fabric, it’s not actively impractical and I can run in it. Time to embrace my inner pretty pretty princess?”

She twirls, and the silky fabric flies out like a flower opening.

“Oh wow. You should buy six of those, Sloane, it’s like you’re wearing a giant lily. Hey, if humans are stealing asari fashion, do you think I can get one of those robes to fit me?” That shade of orange would make me look like a stick of white chalk, but a pastel version? Maybe with some Great Big Holes in it, because why not?

She frowns. “Isn’t that a bit gender-bendy? I mean, I know the rules are changing what with _everyone_ wanting to look like our pretty blue overlords, but…”

“…Well, of course it’s gender-bendy. We’re stealing fashion ideas from a species that doesn’t usually have gender. Wait. You have a gender, right, or did I get the wrong idea?”

She blinks. “Ah. Right. I may be, ah, a little behind the times. Never mind.”

“I could make it more masculine by wearing a glittery hat?”

 ..................................................

_Space was the new opportunity, when I was a kid,_ Sloane told me six hundred years ago. _Chance to get away from… you know how many people have told me I should straighten my hair if I want to be taken seriously? My mum, she used to tell me that! Then we get to space, and… no offense to you lot, Hierarchy seem to have half a clue what they’re doing, but it’s already full of unregulated capitalism and bloody stupid wars and they look at you funny for not being blue! Time to find somewhere that’s actually new, and see how little of that fucked-up baggage we can bring along._

I still don’t understand the issue with her hair. When she untied it, it became a cloud.

…I caught my mandibles in her hair once. It took an embarrassingly long time to untangle.

 .....................................................

That last night before launch.

Music and glitter and everyone high on one substance or another, and I tried to dance with Sloane, look, it didn’t quite work between me being used to taller partners and her legs bending backwards, so I picked her up and she squeaked and hit me and that’s when I found out she was strong enough to lift me. _Show some respect, laddie,_ she said, _I’m twice your age!_ So I tickled her and she shoved me into a wall and we somehow wound up in an empty storeroom and she said _hang on, is this going where I think it’s going,_ and I said _why not?_

We kept most of our clothes on. Decided we’d pick things up in Andromeda if it still looked like a good idea sober.

The correct response to humans trying to put their mouth on your mouth is _not_ to enthusiastically lick their face. Apparently that’s “weird.”


	3. Now

Scott Ryder’s been crying. He’s bright as a butterfly most of the time – gold or silver eyeliner standing out against his near-black skin, shimmering lipstick, ribbons and crystal clipped to his dreadlocks – and it’s unnerving to see him un-painted in public.

Jaal Ama Darav and Vetra Nyx stand at his shoulders like bodyguards. Darav’s tricky to read, but Nyx is weirdly blank-faced and all her claws are out.

Addison and Tann have comfortable seats. I have a seat that’d be comfortable for a human. Kesh is standing, but mainly because Tann couldn’t find a chair strong enough to take her weight. Over the other side of the table, Darav and Ryder and Nyx won’t sit down.

“I…” Ryder takes a deep breath. “I did not plan this. I expected a Collective coup, but not now, and not like this. My contribution was to… decide it was for the best, and decide… not to stand in the Collective’s way.”

“Never mind that!” Tann chirps. “So credit where credit’s due, I suppose we should give the bounty to this Keema rather then you. Still the best news I’ve heard since, ooh, since Nakmor started behaving like civilised people! And _that_ was certainly your doing!”

Kesh gives me the “how long till we get democratic elections” look.

“But…” Ryder says, “The Collective certainly consider me an ally now. This Charlatan…” his voice wavers for a moment, “Is clearly not trustworthy, but I believe they can be trusted not to sabotage their own self-interest.”

Darav looks revolted for a second and then deliberately expressionless, but he nods agreement. Tann’s not looking at him – seems to have mistaken him for hired muscle.

“ _Is_ Lady Keema the Charlatan?” Addison asks Scott.

“She refuses to specify. But it seems… more likely than not. In any case, she’s handling negotiations “for them”.” He nods. “According to the desert clans, she’s quite ruthless and underhanded but she _does_ look after her own, reliably and competently, and I believe that includes Collective exiles.”

Addison shakes her head. “You’re telling me Sloane’s pet Uncle Tom is actually some revolutionary mastermind? _Damn,_ she played the part well!”

Pet what?

Ryder nods. “I don’t believe K-Kelly… thought to ask the desert clans about Keema’s reputation.” He’s quietly leaking tears again.

“ _What,”_ Tann demands, “are you crying over? The woman was a traitor, a thug, and quite frankly a bomb waiting to explode! We should be celebrating that we’re rid of her!”

Ryder squares his shoulders. He’s a head shorter than Darav but nearly as solid, and he could probably snap Tann in half.

“ _Mannovai Akha Siah Vao Jaeru Tann Jarun_.” He spits every syllable. “When I was a promising young lieutenant defending the Verge, I worked closely with Captain Kelly. I assure you that she was a better CO than Alec Ryder. I looked forward to working with her again in Andromeda. So _regardless_ of what life choices she may have made in Andromeda, I hope you can understand why I’m upset that I just _watched her die?_ ”

Tann’s on his feet with his fists clenched. Ryder has to tilt his head a long way back to meet Tann’s eyes, but he’s not looking away. It’s not a good sign when humans bare their teeth.

I stand up quickly. “Come on, Tann, let the kid be upset. Kelly used to be a hero.”

Darav drops his arm across Ryder’s shoulders, half support but obviously half restraint. Tann frowns at me, his little pink mouth pinched into an outraged line.

Tann knows me. I’ve had every opportunity to assassinate him in the night, or to start my own mutiny (and I’d plan it properly), or to steal a shuttle and go looking for Sloane and her exiles, and I’ve taken none of them. I’ve put together an army out of rent-a-thugs and scientists who like explosives and plumbers who were commandos four centuries ago, and if I was planning to use them against him, I’d’ve done it a long time ago. So if he’s going to start being paranoid, it won’t be aimed at me.

_(maybe if I’d run away to find Sloane, I could have helped her run the port, work with the locals rather than assuming they were all useless cowards, know when to stop cracking down…)_

(If I’d run off looking for Sloane, it’s quite likely that the Nexus would have no army. And quite likely that I’d have died in some useless, idiotic way, or gone the same way she did.)

(She died and I wasn’t there.)

“Plus,” Nyx says, “on top of everything else, bad breakup. Guy could have timed it better, don’t you think?”

What?

“ _What?”_ Ryder yelps. Darav just looks confused.

Nyx shrugs. “In other words, Scott’s just had the worst day he’s had in, oh, a while, so I think he has a right to cry if he wants to.”

She sits down, firmly, and of course she makes sitting in a human chair look natural and elegant.

“What the hell, Vetra!” Ryder snaps, looking a lot less murderous and a lot more outraged. “This meeting is not about my personal life!”

She hands him a handkerchief. He glares at the handkerchief.

_Thank_ you, Nyx, for distracting everybody. Have I ever told you how utterly wonderful you are? “Sorry to hear that, Scott,” I tell him. What… exactly… was he up to on _Kadara?_ And what’s _that_ a cover story for?

He shakes his head. “Should have known better. Should have known the damn _piece of candy_ was using me. Now are we planning to go through the whole list of Inadvisable Places Scott Ryder Has Stuck His Dick, or can we get back to geopolitical negotiation?”

Tann sits back down and takes a deep breath. Darav lets go of Ryder and steps backwards, staring at Tann and swirling his bright cloak like he’s trying to take up as much space as possible. _I am here. I will not be brushed aside._

(Sloane Kelly died, and I wasn’t there.)

...........................................................................

I hated Kelly’s throne, hated it, wanted to fly to Kadara and rip her off it and kick it to pieces. But it’s even more wrong to see Keema Dohrgun on it, smiling as sweetly as ever.

The holographic connection’s so good that I could believe Keema’s sitting in front of us. Her skin’s as fragile as human skin, arteries almost as close to the surface, and I’ve lost far too much muscle but my claws are still sharp.

If I close my eyes I can see Sloane bleeding out in the dirt, and Keema smiling like that and dusting off her hands…

Sloane refused to let the angara join the Outcasts. She claimed their port for herself and she told them to submit or get out. _Keema used the same rifle she uses to hunt kett,_ Ryder said. _She’s making a point of that._

Fuck it, Sloane, I thought you were competent! I thought if you made yourself a pirate queen, you’d at least do a good job of it!

Keema’s face paint is back where it belongs, and she’s wearing traditional embroidered trousers, but she’s kept the white lace blouse.

“Director Tann,” she says in Galactic Standard. “I could not be more pleased to meet you properly. Where should we start?”


	4. Then

It still seemed like a good idea sober. We worked so well together and, after the universe broke, we both needed comfort.

And well, yes, physical comfort. The parts didn’t exactly match, but I’ve always been good with my hands and… yeah, those rumours about asari mouths?

_Sloane’s naked on the edge of her bed, and, well, not what I’m used to? Everything’s round and soft like a very sexy cushion. Pretty sure I’m not supposed to grab her chest padding and jiggle it, but I’m tempted._

_“Rumours?” she says cheerfully. “Can’t speak for the asari, but where I’m from, that’s a standard sex act. Just takes a bit more creativity and some extra precautions when you’re going interspecies. Want me to show you?”_

........................................................................

I took to sleeping in her bed, as discretely as I could. I’m sure I smelled like her, I’m sure the salarians and krogan could tell (Kesh certainly knew), but there were no comments.

Sometimes it was about sex and sometimes it was just… when you wake in the middle of the night and you’ve just seen your friends shot by geth, again, except this time it was your fault for abandoning your duty, it’s good to have someone to curl up against.

“I won’t forgive the Alliance for sending us into Varrua,” she told me in the dark. “You know the difference between Varrua and Torfan? At Torfan, we won.”

I cried on her sometimes because everything was broken and my family were long dead.

“My blood family?” Sloane said, lying half on top of me like a little soft hot water bottle. “Nah, I hadn’t spoken to them for years anyway. They’re all mean drunks and they’re all drunk most of the time. Garson, though,” and she dug her face into my neck, “I _really_ fucking miss Garson.”

I tried to contact Sloane, after Ryder found her on Kadara, but she wouldn’t speak to me.

All the rumours say that Kaetus was her mate. He was her oldest friend, and loyal – that’s fair.


	5. Now

I took over Calix Corvannis’s private quarters – wasn’t about to take Sloane’s, and the furniture fitted me better, and the poor bastard certainly won’t need them back. I haven’t had time to redecorate. His town mascot plushie collection’s still staring at me from the bookshelf.

Still, I’ve made time to set up a shrine to the spirits of the Nexus and the Initiative, those who protect and strengthen and make things whole.

(My sister made the shrine and its little bronze dancing figures. “Household gods, for when you have your own household,” she said, and she put her arms around me and pressed her face to mine for the last time.)

And I’ve set up a shrine to honour my family. For my distant ancestors, and for those who were alive six hundred years ago, and for my father who I can hardly remember, and for Nyreen.

Someone needs to mourn Sloane Kelly. I will not let her lie un-mourned.

(Nyreen was so much brighter and braver than I’ll ever be. When she ran away, her parents claimed she was dead.)

We’re not permitted to own pictures of Sloane, so the image I’m making for my shrine is just a disc of brown metal. I’ve roughened the lower left for her scars. She caught the edge of an IED blast, in one of the little wars after Torfan fell, and she kept fighting till the order came to retreat. I’d like to use jewels for her eyes, but I don’t have any. Bright glass crystals, then, one brown and one blue.

If Tann asks? It’s abstract art.

 

I will see you removed, Jarun Tann. I will see you removed peacefully by democratic election, and I will see you returned to the job you could perform competently, and I will see you left in a nice quiet room where no one listens to your politics, and you are welcome to work for the greater good till you die of old age. Perhaps I’ll write historical accounts about you.


	6. Now

The climate control in my quarters sets itself to Human Standard and refuses to be reset, and Kesh shows up in person to fix it and makes me a pot of tea.

Well, a teapot of something. It’s purple and it smells like flowers. “Kesh. What is this?”

She shrugs. “They call it _ahkua_ in Shelesh if that helps. Some Elaaden herb that Vorn’s domesticating. Don’t worry, it’s been properly tested and it really is safe for all Initiative species.” She grins. “Hark’s already putting together an advertising campaign. He thinks we can fill the gap left by the Milky Way tea supplies running out. Should be a good market, don’t you think?”

The army gives you your ration of spice tea, and it’s never very good but I had to hide in my room and cry when there was none left.

They’re planting tea-trees in Prodromos next year. We’ll have our spice tea again before the humans get their coffee.

_If I can, Sloane, I’ll take berries from the first coffee crop in Heleus and I’ll offer them up to you. Best I can manage._

The ahkua is sharp and sweet and actually pretty good. Kesh pulls up the reinforced chair I made for her and drinks it with me.

“I made her an image,” I tell Kesh, and show her my shrine. “Best I could do.”

Kesh ducks her head before the shrine and mutters her own words – I’m still learning about her religion and my translator struggles with the language, but something about honour and _to darkness, to light._ “If it helps,” she adds, “Morda’s done the proper death rite for Kelly. She named her a worthy warrior.”

“I suppose she used to be.”

Kesh pats me on the shoulder. “Morda, well, she’s from a different time, she’s a better clan chief than our last but she’s still getting her head round a few things.” Her face screws up in outrage. “Asked me last week what I could possibly want Vorn for!”

“…did you make hand gestures?”

“Course I did! She made a _beautiful_ face." Kesh rolls her eyes. “Except then she thought I was saying he wasn’t good for anything else! Have you ever tried – of course you haven’t, can you imagine – explaining Nakmor Vorn’s good points to a seven-hundred-year-old who thinks Overlord is a good title?”

He gives her a new flower every time he’s on the Nexus. After the first one, he started making sure they were all useful plants (mostly cooking herbs), but prettiness is non-negotiable. She’s never figured out how to reciprocate so she just repairs all his equipment then improves it then polishes it shiny. When we had that big strawberry crop she made herb-flavoured strawberry jam, but it came out solid and chewy, so I told her to cut it into cubes and mail it to him as candy. He sent back a bunch of selfies where… I think he was trying to eat candy suggestively?

Kesh sits back at my rickety folding table and sips a bit more purple tea, holding the asari-size cup between two fingers.

“Poor bugger,” she adds. “Had more sense than Morda, when I knew her.”

“ _What the hell happened?_ ”

Kesh shrugs. “Can’t speak for what happened after the mutiny. I suppose she gave up. Decided everything was shit so she might as well be part of the problem. Never thought _she’d_ lie down and stop fighting, but, well, she saved most of the exiles. When Ryder found them they had enough spare food and shelter to get drunk in crappy bars. We can remember that?”

“Saved most of the exiles she didn’t throw out to die over _money!”_

Keema Dohrgun spent her whole life fighting aliens who treated her like an animal, and when new aliens invaded and _didn’t treat her a great deal better,_ of course she did what she’d always done!

I still can’t remember how we escaped the kett base. They took Jenny McMahon and we heard what they did to her, I remember that _far too clearly,_ and they came back for the rest of us… next thing I can remember we were on a shuttle, most of us still naked, and all my teeth were broken.

“Sloane never vivisected anyone,” I tell Kesh, “and that might be the kindest thing I can say.”

A few of my teeth are still broken. Poking them with my tongue won’t help them regrow.

Kesh turns her head, looks at me hard with one big yellow eye, and says “Have some more tea.”

I sit back on the cheap folding chair, take the cup, and eat my daily handful of pills. Copper supplements, because the nutrient paste isn’t quite balanced yet, and artificial male hormones because the fertility blockers reacted badly with my system and gave me headaches, and a couple of different flavours of Bottled Sanity. It’s quite effective bottled sanity – it does wonders to keep my head clear and help me only swear at people who need swearing at. It’d be nice to involve properly qualified mental health staff, but of course they’re all frozen and we may or may not have enough food to wake them and Addison has some imbecilic cultural taboo against discussing the subject…

“Are your family all right?” I ask Kesh.

“Most of ‘em had the sense to be on a different planet from the uprising. Gramps is pretty upset, seems to think he’s done something shameful he won’t talk about, but if Scott and Cora let him do it then, look, you’d figure it can’t be that bad.” She frowns. “Gulnaz Cathak, though, Sloane’s bodyguard? He decided to go down fighting. Always did have more honour than sense.”

I think I can picture his face. “My condolences.”

“Honestly, he was an idiot. And barely even related to me. Still, though? He might’ve stopped being an idiot if he’d had a few centuries.” She shakes her head. “You’ve still got Corvannis’s creepy plushies?”

“I’ve decided I like them.” They’re cute. Someday, someone will put The Plushies of Calix Corvannis in a museum.

“Long as you’ve thrown out his underwear!”

“Honestly, I wound up wearing it after mine fell apart. What? It was clean!”

Kesh rolls her eyes.

“Hmm,” I say, “how’s Hark planning to advertise the ahkua? New tea for a new galaxy?”

Kesh looks through me. “Feel like she should have been harder to kill. Never quite thought of her as human, if you know what I mean?” She tugs at the loose flesh under her chin. Her throat’s no more vulnerable than the rest of her – under the fat, there’s enough cartilage armour to stop most bullets.

I nod agreement. Sloane survived so much that you could assume she was indestructible.

She was a hero once. I refuse to forget that.

She never made a sound during sex, she’d spent too long in barracks and hiding in storerooms, but the way she’d grab at the sheets…

She curled herself round me in the dark and kept me safe. Humans have that dense, rich musk to them, even clean, and I think I could pick her scent out of a crowd.

I almost had the hang of braiding her hair.

“There’s a poem,” I say.

Kesh nods.

“Not the same in Galactic Standard, but… _I will love you till the stars are dark; and I will love you after that.”_

Kesh nods.

“Mum used to recite it to Dad every year, when we went to meet the dead. Never stopped her having boyfriends, mind you.”

“Yeah,” Kesh says. “ _Not_ planning to forgive Kelly, myself. Dealt with enough Tuchanka warlords when I lived on Tuchanka. Been that… thing that talks, but isn’t a real person… half the time since. But… y’know, she’s dead, doesn’t make much difference to her if you forgive her or not? No need to forgive her to love her. When I worked with her, she was damn good to work with.”


	7. Now

Sloane Kelly died on Kadara. The rest of us are alive.

 

While we were negotiating with the Dohrguns, Anjik do Xeel ordered a Nakmor krannt to attack the Thirteen Spires kett base. There is now _no_ Thirteen Spires kett base. It’ll make good farmland.

We should try to extradite Kaetus back to the Nexus. That’ll be politically interesting, but he’s committed no crimes against the Initiative.

Now that the food situation’s not desperate, now that we’re able to thaw out more people, it’s more than time we had a proper police force. Using your army as civil police is a recipe for predictable, avoidable disasters. Ooh, I think I can agree with Addison for a change!

And in another few months, if all goes well, we can thaw some second-wave colonists. I told Luna I’d have a chocolate cake waiting for her. The humans ate everything resembling chocolate several months back, but I’ll get her some Daar Pelaav dried fruit.

Sorry about all this, Luna. Did my best!

I don’t have to like or trust Keema Dohrgun to do business with her. She’s prepared to do business, and she’s willing to sell us land and food if we pay enough in technological blueprints and military aid, and that’s what we need. Things could have ended immensely worse.

 

(I will not forget you.)


End file.
